a recipe and a weekend update

We had a fun time over the weekend visiting pumpkinland. My grandson is 10 months old now and he is really starting to enjoy things. One of his favorite things besides his grandma :)  is to be outside. Here is a picture of him sitting on a giant squash, he is looking like he thinks I am crazy for sitting him on it and then trying to get him to smile for a picture.


On the left is a picture of my daughter and my niece. They are best buds. My niece does not allow my daughter to go anywhere without her. When we go over to visit and it is time for us to leave my niece gets her shoes, grabs my daughter's hand and expects to leave with her. It is such a sweet bond that they have. I think it will last a lifetime.






Here is a picture of my son (left) and his fiancé (right). It was nice having almost all of the family there. My husband stayed home to process chickens that were ready to be done. We also got to go on a hayride to the pumpkin patch and pick out pumpkins, go through a corn maze and there was a place that my niece loved where you could throw straw at people without anyone telling you to stop. It was a wonderful day even though it was a little hot for October.



Here is a recipe from Our Simple Farm that I wanted to share with you. It is a recipe for apple pie filling and a recipe for using the filling. I hope you enjoy. Below is a picture of the apple pie filling that I canned yesterday.

 

 

I hope everyone has a wonderful and blessed day!

 

~April

If you can't say something nice.......

I want to thank all of my readers the ones that visit me on my blog and the ones that visit me on my facebook page, for always being so nice in your comments and questions. There are too many people in this world who like to argue and be cruel. I read blogs where it seems like one comment can cause the rest of the comments to be mean. What happened to the old saying if you can't say something nice do not say anything at all. I believe in sharing how you feel on a subject but all of the meanness and hatred in this world is scary and I am so grateful to have a following of very nice, kind and caring people. I hope you continue to follow my blog and follow me on facebook. I appreciate each and everyone of you. God bless you all and I hope your days have been happy.

~April

Oh no! I missed Tuesday!

I am going to blame it on the holiday weekend. I missed posting on Tuesday! I honestly am behind on my days. Monday felt like Sunday and the rest is all messed up but I think I am catching up now and realized that today is actually Wednesday.

 

School started yesterday and my beautiful daughter is now a senior. Time sure does fly by. It seems when they are young like you have all of the time in the world before they grow up and then in the blink of an eye they are in their last year of high school. I plan on making this a great year for her especially since it won't be long now before she has to be an adult and I want her to enjoy being a kid as long as possible.

 

 

I am starting a real food diet. It is not a fad diet but a change in the way I am eating. I decided that the best way to do this is to take it slow and change one or two things at a time. I think that will make it an easier transition. I will be sharing my progress and hopefully some of you will join me on this. I am not officially starting until September 14 because that is the day after payday. I am going to do as well as I can with what we have on hand but I do not have enough real food in my cupboards right now to last until then. It was a shocking realization when I actually went through my cupboards of how much processed food we eat. I thought we were doing well until I took an inventory and I am sad to say we eat a lot of things that we shouldn't.

 

Farm update:

The rabbits are growing nicely. In a few weeks they will be old enough to start selling them. If I can get half of them sold then that will make it so that I make a little bit of money but trust me it is not enough to live on, my husband will still need to keep his job, lol.

 

The goats all seemed to go into heat at once yesterday so we are going to need to put some extra stalls in the goat house. Last year our buck did not seem to be able to handle more then one lady a month so I just let him in with the whole herd of does that I wanted bred this year and I found out that this year he can keep up with them all! Looking like I might get lots of goat babies all at once. I can't wait for babies to be here but that will not be for about 5 months. I have decided to dry up Nellie. She was my only milker that I was milking. She is separated from her kids right now so they spend a lot of time yelling back and forth still. They have been separated for a week but they still yell ALOT. I have also stopped milking her so that makes her yell even louder. I just keep telling myself that this will not last forever.

 

There is not much to say about the chickens. They still like to walk around and peck at the ground.

 

I bought a cat from PetSmart over the weekend. She is a cat from a shelter, she is 11 years old and very loving. Almost too loving. She wants to always be with me. I keep finding her in my bed beside me when I wake up. Ugh!

 

Hunting season will be upon us soon and my husband is getting antsy. He has cleared a field so that it is easier to see the deer and he likes to sit in his tree stand in the evenings and watch for how many deer come by. I think he just likes to pretend he is up there hunting.

 

I hope everyone had a nice Labor Day weekend and that you have gotten caught up on what day it is.

 

Blessings to you all!!

~April

Shared at The Homeacre Hop

Farmer April's farm updates

I really need to get more organized. I am starting to use lists so that I can get everything done or at least know what all I need to get done. I cannot promise I will do it all because sometimes my list is longer then my energy or even the day. One thing on my list on Tuesdays will be to give a farm update on my blog. Let everyone know what has been going on here.

Aren't these 2 little goats the cutest little things? Well, they weren't as cute at 6 am when they woke me up screaming for their momma because I have them in a separate pen to be weaned. I am trying to sell them and I think they would sell better if they were weaned. I am hoping to be able to sell the baby goats so that I can save the money and get some pure bred goats to raise. I am really excited about this.  Everytime they would yell their momma would yell back so I imagine I am not the favorite person of all my neighbors. Good thing I live by all relatives and they have to love me. Since I am weaning them and they no longer eat from their momma that also means I am milking her twice a day now and it also means more milk for cheese, ice cream, soap, yogurt, the list goes on and on.........

These are from my first litter of Californians. They are almost a month old now. I am really excited about raising this breed. I hope they sell well because I need to at least make back the money I use feeding them and buying supplies to tan hides. I think my rabbits are becoming my favorite animal on the farm. They are so cute and soft and if I want I can have babies here all of the time. I love the red eyes.

This is a picture of me and Jane Doe. She was a bottle baby that I raised. Look at the smile on her face. She is such a happy goat. She crawls under the gate and gets out whenever she wants and it is becoming a nuisance so I put her in the pen with the ones I am weaning. She isn't too excited.

Yesterday's garden harvest. I am excited to be starting to get produce from the garden again. Can you see the marks on the watermelons from the hail storm we had about a month ago? It ruined my zucchini, beans and cucumbers but everything else seems to be making a recovery. I am so glad because I thought all was lost when I saw the garden after the hail hit so hard but God provides and we are now getting lots and lots of tomatoes.

Another picture of Jane Doe to show you just how spoiled she is.

 

Have a blessed day!

 

April

 

Linked to Homestead Barn Hop

 

 

Why I do not coupon

I have been reading so many things on facebook and different blogs about couponing and I see that some people are able to save so much money this way and sometimes get lots of things for free and sometimes even get money back so I decided to give it a try because hey, who does not like saving money. For a couple weeks I spent hours pouring over coupon flyers that came in the mail and hours going through the different coupon sites, I have even learned recently that some people pay for coupons, I then got out the weekly ads for the stores around here so that I could match up coupons with the store ads and get the best deals. I then spent all day Friday going to the different stores to get these bargains. I have to admit I did save a lot of money but when I was putting my groceries away I realized that I bought a lot of things I would not normally want to have in my place. I am a momma and wife that believes in cooking from scratch and not having a lot of prepackaged box foods and snacks around. I have to admit there are times I get lazy and grab a frozen pizza (hangs head in shame) or we go to a local fast food place (hangs head even lower) but I am trying to get our habits turned around to where we eat healthier. So I have decided that if I can find some coupons on the baking items I still need to buy at the grocery store or I come acrossed a coupon for something I would normally buy because in reality I cannot grow and make all of my own products yet even though that is my goal then I will be clipping those coupons and using them but I do not have the time or the energy to be running around all over the place to get one or 2 items that I have a coupon for. I will still be looking at store ads to see which store has better prices that week but I will not be sacrificing the way we eat just because I have a coupon anymore or because I can get that item for free. I am by no means putting down people who coupon or who do not do things the way that I do I am just saying that this is not right for me. I hope you enjoyed my post and you all have a blessed day.

Blessings to all!!

~April

shared at Homestead Barn Hop

Better then Kool Aid recipe and a giveaway

If you head on over to Deep Roots at Home there is a recipe for Better then Koolaid that I am wanting to give a try and they are having a great giveaway! You can check it out by clicking the link above.

poison ivy predicament part 2

I am pleased to report that my poison ivy rash is healing after only a few days of using the jewelweed salve I made. I do like the one that I made with the coconut oil the best. It smells better and I think simmering it for an hour made the salve stronger. It helps with itching and seems to be drying it up also. I also wash the area with tea tree oil soap before applying the salve. I hope this helps everyone or at least someone out there who is suffering and does not want to use commercial medication on it. I will be making the salve every year because even though while poison ivy is flourishing so is jewelweed and you do not have to make it into a salve to use it. You can just crush up the stems of the jewelweed and apply the juice directly to the area but in the months were there is no jewelweed growing it will be nice to have the salve for other itchy problems.

Update on rabbits, I have added some nesting material for Ms. Kay and Chloe. Yesterday was day 28 so it should not be long now. Most of my rabbits have their babies on day 30 or 31. I cannot wait to be sharing pictures with you of the little sweeties.

Have a wonderful and blessed day!

~April
Shared at The Homeacre Hop